Temperature switches using a bimetal element have conventionally been known. For example, a temperature switch having a configuration in which fixed contacts provided respectively to ends of two terminals that are arranged in parallel are opened and closed by a single movable contact that operates in accordance with the operations of the bimetal element is proposed (see Patent Document 1 for example).
In the temperature switch of Patent Document 1, the two terminals are arranged in parallel as described above and the current-passing direction is turned back at the contact part in the switch so that currents are passed only at a contact part in the switch and do not flow to other constituents such as a bimetal element, a movable plate, etc.
Because the current-passing direction is turned back at the contact part as described above resulting in a minimum current-passing path in the switch, i.e., a minimum internal resistance of the switch, the configuration generates a very small amount of heat due to electric resistance, and thus has solved the problem wherein the operation temperature of the switch becomes lower than the actual operation temperature that is set in advance.
This temperature switch is based on an assumption that voltages used by the embedded electric devices are low, causing no problems even with a short distance between the parallel terminals, and accordingly the configuration with the current-passing direction turning back at the contact mechanism has an advantage of being able to make the overall configuration of the temperature switch compact.